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A crucial vote is coming up later this month in the EU's move to change its copyright laws. The proposed plans included mandatory content filters and a so-called link tax to be paid by sites linking to other sites, articles 13 and 11 respectively. TorrentFreak writes about the current status of the legislation and of the deadline to fix or block the proposed EU copyright legislation is coming up quickly and time is running out to salvage the situation regarding rules which will drastically affect the Internet.
Earlier on SN
European Copyright Law Isn't Great. It Could Soon Get a Lot Worse
Censorship Machines Are Coming: It's Time for the Free Software Community to Use its Political Clout
Compromises on Copyright Maximalism are Clearly No Longer on the EU Agenda
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:42AM (8 children)
They won't "drastically affect the Internet". They'll drastically affect Europe. I'll be over here not giving a fuck what Europe passes because, and this is key, I am not European and they are not the boss of me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:21AM (7 children)
I'll be over here not giving a fuck what Europe passes because, and this is key, I am not European and they are not the boss of me.
Not giving a fuck until two minutes after Articles 11 and 13 get passed in Europe and then the politicians in the US start working overtime on "harmonization". This affects everybody. If the EU screws up on this, it'll be twice as easy for the US to follow suit by just "harmonizing" laws. It goes either direction across the Atlantic, and copyright has been one of the worst.
I expect a few of the largest US companies are already getting lobbying plans in place to jump into action on this, if they aren't already actively lobbying on the topic. Those few have a lot to gain by shutting out everyone else and turning the net into television.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @04:44AM (1 child)
Unlike the EU, freedom of speech kind of matters in the US.
Honestly, I want the EU to do this. Do it! Do it hard!
Occasionally the US's population needs a little reminder that free speech matters. The EU would really be taking one for the team, demonstrating the importance. Thanks, guys! We appreciate your sacrifice!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @08:10AM
More so than the EU, sure, but not completely. Obscenity laws, FCC censorship, free speech zones, NSLs, the war on whistleblowers, and so on are all unconstitutional, and yet they are accepted practices by our authoritarian courts. We already have countless draconian copyright laws on the books, so I'm not entirely sure that something similar couldn't happen here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @05:29AM (4 children)
See, there's a problem there. The US can't pass a similar law or even allow EU law to apply here via treaty without repealing the first amendment before they do. It wouldn't take twelve hours after the first case hit a court for a stay to be issued.
Major US companies that care do so because they want to be able to have a presence in the EU. They're very fond of housing shell companies and money in Ireland, for instance. Anyone who doesn't can just ignore anything the EU passes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday June 06 2018, @06:53AM (1 child)
Yes, there is that, but only if the US legislators and their corporate owners do not want to pass these laws. I'd argue that based on past copyright extensions and the DMCA/EUCD they are chomping at the bit to have an excuse to bring a link tax and upload filters into the US. With the latter, now that M$ owns GitHub they'd have an exception granted and thus be the only legal code repository in the region.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday June 06 2018, @05:53PM
As someone pointed out, I have no idea where I got it from, probably random soylent comment. GitHub is being vacated by a goodly number of people. Please see one of the recent posts on Gitlab's Twitter page. https://twitter.com/gitlab [twitter.com]
0 imports from GitHub in late May 2018. Up to 98,300 imports from GitHub to GitLab on 06/05/2018. I would call that a serious shift. It just might have something to do with who acquired GitHub recently.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @08:04AM (1 child)
But the US government constantly violates the Constitution, including the first amendment; obscenity laws, FCC censorship, free speech zones, etc. are examples of this, regardless of what our treacherous courts claim. The question is whether or not the government would do that here as well?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:02AM
The government isn't homogenous. It's entirely possible, even likely, that the courts would slap a big ole "eat shit and die" on any law/treaty like this.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.